Mitt Romney - Romney - Political Hotsheet - Individual Mandate Is A Tax

(CBS News) Two a short time soon after their leading agent insisted otherwise, Mitt Romney with Wednesday told CBS News chief political correspondent Jan Crawford of which President Obama's personal mandate - upheld very last weeks time by the Supreme Court - is "a tax."

"The Supreme Court has spoken, along with when I arranged with all the dissent, that may be obtained over by the actuality that the majority in the court docket claimed it's a tax, and for that reason this is a tax. They possess spoken. There's oh dear close to that," your presumptive GOP presidential nominee told Crawford within an exclusive interview, discussing that court's 5-4 ruling of which basically upheld the president's signature bank wellbeing treatment law, when using the person mandate for a tax.

"I said this I decided when using the dissent, and the dissent managed to get very clear of which these people were feeling it was unconstitutional," Romney continued. "But the particular dissent displaced - it is while in the minority."

The specific mandate is actually individually problematic to get Romney, whose health treatment legislation while Massachusetts governor additionally included a mandate. But just as one anti-tax maximize candidate, Romney includes relied for the debate in which with the point out level, governors can levy on mandate below "police powers" - a new truth of which Supreme Court fundamental justice John Roberts listed throughout his or her opinion.

Still, Romney's statements contradict a backpedaling steer Monday by his or her older person mechanic Eric Fehrnstrom. After the marketing campaign have to begin with hopped aboard with critics expressing the court's ruling pointed out the health care legislation is often a enormous taxes maximize with Americans, Fehrnstrom - no doubt eyeing possible backlash relating to Romney's unique earlier mandate - explained to MSNBC that Romney "agreed while using dissent written simply by Justice Scalia which pretty clearly mentioned which the mandate hasn't been a new tax."

Pressed simply by Crawford with no matter whether he or she experienced flip-flopped with getting in touch with the mandate a tax, Romney turned this table, arguing the fact that president may be the one that is eliminated returning on his word.

"You can easily try out and say you want had made a decision some other way, but many people didn't," Romney said. "They concluded it absolutely was a tax; which is exactly what this is. And your American individuals be aware that President Obama has shattered the actual promise your dog made. He said he / she couldn't raise taxes with middle-income Americans, rather than just did they increase this $500 billion that is undoubtedly inside the bill, it really is these days apparent in which his / her mandate, since identified by the particular Supreme Court, can be a tax."

Watch extra associated with Jan Crawford's appointment having Mitt Romney Wednesday night within the "CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley" (6:30 p.m. EST) along with Thursday on "CBS This Morning" (7 a.m. EST).